You know as a roadside emergency technician there are certain calls that you would rather not have gotten and some that you love. There’s service calls that we love including Honda’s, Toyota’s, Nissans, Chevy, Ford and even Dodge! Then there’s those cars that are… let’s say a negative stimulus: BMW, VW, Range Rover, Land Rover, and the biggest let down of all – Audi!
Ive seen my fair share of batteries the size of 1980’s personal computers and excessively hard to access spare tires but when I started getting streams of AUDI and VW roadside calls I noticed a constant theme. The all terrain vehicles with rugged DIY consumers, mountain bikes and snowboards strapped to their roof racks, unable to change their own spare tire. Why is it that one of the most mechanically inclined group of vehicle owners can’t get a spare replaced while on the side of the highway? Because it’s flat!
The engineers at Audi, Porsche and VW don’t want you to replace your spare tire. Heck, some cars aren’t even equiped with a spare at all!
Its not that they didn’t add a compressor to inflate your space saving spare tire, it’s just that the compressor doesn’t have the right PSI rating to actually air up the tire and it might have something to do with cold temperature. I’ve seen many of Audi and VW compressors that just can’t pop the bead no matter how long you wait the little compressor just doesn’t have the power. Many times when I first saw this I was unable to get the bead popped on the tire! I had a small compressor as well and I found myself losing Audi, VW, and Porsche customers so I made sure to keep a stronger compressor capable of getting that tire back on to Audi, VW, and Porsche Vehicles.
“According to a study by AAA, some 28 percent of all new vehicles sold in 2017 do not offer a spare tire as standard equipment. That’s nearly a third of all new vehicles.” – Autoweek.com
This is all bad news for drivers in states like Minnesota. It gets dangerous in the winter time with ice and snow on the road, the longer your vehicle is disabled the more likely your breakdown turns into something more deadly. This is why companies like mine are finding new ways to build partnerships with tire shops and get access to spares 24/7/365
My business, Brian’s Emergency Roadside is partnering with a small shop located in North Minneapolis so that anytime we get a call we have access to tires for vehicle owners that don’t have spare tires. Many roadside companies are doing the same thing although the cost of a VW spare at 1am might be exorbitant when you use the larger roadside services, this is why we are trying to do our part in our neighborhood.
I don’t know what the future holds, although it looks like the trend of spare less cars and space saving flat spares is only getting bigger. Engineers at these big automakers need to make a change or the need for roadside emergency services will keep getting bigger.
